Katy Kazadi

Katy Kazadi | Fabruary 4, 2024

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Oh, good morning, church family. How are you this morning? Good. You look beautiful. Actually, I can hardly see a thing with the light. So I'm by faith, I'm saying you look beautiful this morning. If you have not met me, my name is Katie Kazadi. You see me sometimes here, but more often you see me in the bathroom or in the kids area picking up my children. But today you see me here. I want to welcome you to Timothy City Church if it's your first time, also online. Thank you so much for joining us and we pray that God blesses every person under the sound of my voice today. If it is your first time, I do highly encourage that you come back next week to hear from our pastor who is with us here on the front row, pastor Tim Rivers, who we love, what an incredible pastor we have. And I think after you hear this message, you might appreciate him even a little bit more. Not because I plan to preach terrible, but because you'll see. But I think you'll understand why you're so blessed to have him as a pastor this morning. I'm grateful for the opportunity to stand before you. I'm a little emotional this morning

Because I feel such a burden for what God has given me. I was scheduled this weekend to preach yesterday at a conference here too. And so I had a great plan. My plan was that I would have a message that I could preach at the conference and on Sunday prepare one message and make my life a lot easier. It was a good plan, wasn't a bad plan, it was a great plan and then it was great, but the Holy Spirit is just root. And about a week and a half ago, he held me hostage with this word. And if I'm honest, because I'm stingy, I don't want to preach it. I thought this was just between us. I thought this was something that God had just been preaching to me for a while, but the burden that I feel left me no escape. I could not sleep until I submitted and said yes. So this morning I want to preach this morning we're going to begin in Psalm, I'm going to read two passages and then we're going to go to the word Psalm chapter 24, verse three and four, who may ascend the mountain of the Lord

Who may stand in his holy place, the one who has clean hands and a pure heart who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false God. And then I read one passage from one kings, which I'll read more of later and unpack one Kings 18, 16 to 20. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And when he saw Elijah, he said to him, is that you trouble of Israel? I haven't made trouble for Israel or Elijah replied, but you and your father's family have said your daddy, you have abandoned the Lord's commands and have followed the bales. No, some of the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Caramel, meet me on the mountain and bring the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asra who eat at Jezebel's table, your wife. So Ahab sent word throughout all of Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. I want to preach today from the title, is that really the mountain You want to die on? Holy Spirit, give me the courage to say everything you said to me the way you said it to me,

And give them the heart to receive as you have given me. And I pray that it would be so by the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Elijah. Ironically, this is Elijah and he's amazing. If you were to ask me over the last few weeks, girl how you been doing? And I were to be totally honest with you, I would probably have said, I'm mad.

I'm mad. I just feel mad. And as I've prayed through my anger and my rage and my madness, God has given me better language for it. I said, God, I'm mad. And he said, are you sure you're mad? I think you're bothered. You're bothered, you're bothered. And the more I leaned into that, the more I moved from bothered to burdened, you're burdened. It's different. You're not angry. You're burdened and it feels like being bothered. You are bothered. Let me tell you why I'm bothered. I'm bothered because I'm so tired of hearing the name of Jesus and the church of Jesus Christ be trampled out in these streets. I'm mad. I'm bothered at the fact that you can turn on YouTube on any given day and find someone taking a man of God and trying to demolish their character without ever having a conversation with them or caring to. And they call it confrontation, but it's cowardice. I'm mad. I'm mad at the way men are being worshiped like American idols because they stand behind pulpits. I'm mad that some of them think that they can preach any kind of foolishness that they want, live any kind of unholy way they want, and we're going to still show up and no one will even have the courage to unfollow them on social media. God forbid we hurt their feelings like they would really know.

But you can live any kind of way, talk any kind of craziness from this scripture, talk all sorts of stuff about my Jesus and still I'm going to attend your church still because he can preach though and I'm mad. I'm mad that there are these American idols. I'm mad at them. I'm mad at myself. I'm mad at us because I understand and I have to bear the weight of the fact that there are no idols without worshipers,

Which means we made them with every repost, with every follow, with every dollar, with every single support we show. We made them. And so it makes me want to say to God, why do you let anybody who's yours be famous at all? I call it church famous. Why does church famous exist? Maybe it's all wrong. And then I feel the Holy Spirit saying to me, I need famous Christians. I need men and women who can influence this world for Christ in ministry and on every mountain of influence. I do need people that I can elevate to those level and I choose to. So I say, okay, God, I pray for those people. I honestly pray for them because it is hard. It is hard to bury the weight of that kind of influence without ever touching the worship. It is hard. It's hard to handle that kind of elevation, but it's hard. But it's possible.

And I know that because this is not an American thing for a person to be elevated to this kind of level in the eyes of a nation or world, this is a biblical thing that there were men that God laid his hand on and pulled up to a mountain peak of elevation where we still talk about them today. Tell me one church famous person that you honestly believe we will still be talking about in 2000 years, but that is the kind of elevation that God did bestow on some people. So I say God, okay, and he leads me to Elijah, not a patriarch, not a king, just an Old Testament prophet. He's so famous. The Jews are still waiting for him to come back and then the Messiah will come back. Elijah so famous. I mean, you're doing something right when thousands of years later, Jesus is walking the earth. He gathers all his crew and he's like, yo, what's the word on the street about me? Who do they say that I am? And they're like, A lot of these people think you're Elijah, right? They say it and Jesus isn't really that guy,

Right?

He's like, yeah, he allowed Elijah that kind of elevation. And you're doing something when you get confused for Jesus. You know also are doing something when God decides you're not even going to die, he's going to take you away and chariot a fire. That brother is still alive. He might be in this room. I don't know, he might be the guy playing the piano right now. Oh no, I don't know. But all I know is he did something right.

The pinnacle of his success happens ironically, the moment that he blows up, he has come up. His blowup happens ironically on the pinnacle of a very high mountain called Mount Caramel. His success takes place when he walks off of this mountain. His name will be known forever. Today we know him mostly because of what happens on and around this mountain. It is his defining moment. This mountain was the perfect location because where it was gave enough space for what is going to be a massive audience. All of Israel, there was space for people, representatives from every household to be able to come. It was a huge crowd and they would all be able to still see and to hear because there were peaks and things. The way this mountain, it provided what the commentators say was like a natural platform and a natural microphone to where this moment could happen.

So God creates a platform for man on an elevated place in front of a massive crowd, and it's his defining moment, a huge crowd, a huge victory, a massive altar call. Everybody repents and now he is thrust into the national spotlight. Elijah is that guy Now Elijah is that guy. He's that guy. Everybody wants at their conference. They weren't thinking nothing about him before this, but now Elijah's the guy we want because he's a draw. And if we have Elijah, everybody will come. He's the draw card. He's that guy. He's that guy that now has to have a stylist and wardrobe changes between services. He's that guy. He's that guy that needs to make sure every person, famous, church famous or anything that he has ever met or crossed the table with, he thinks he becomes so arrogant that you think he thinks that you need to know every single thing he consumed in his body that day ate drink or said because it's that important. He's that guy only. He's not that guy. He don't got the image for it, nothing. This guy wears the same outfit every day. Bible says he wears a leather strap. Now I'm visual. I had to look that up. Make sure what kind of strap we're talking about.

It's not like the guy at the pool and you're like, he's from Europe. So

The leather strap was more like a belt and you use leather. It was very uncomfortable and you only used it if you were poor and you couldn't afford better material. And he does it as a sign. He ties around his waist, a leather to identify with people of all sorts and also to say, I will not bow to you. I will not decide to succumb to the cultural pressures of this world. I am who I am. I am this right here. He wears a leather belts and a hairy mantle, a hairy mantle. Many people were given mantles for different things. The hairy one signified prophetic spiritual authority. There was authority, a mantle. The hairy mantle was like it symbolized that he had spiritual and prophetic authority. He was a man whose mouth God trusted with his own words. This is the kind of authority that makes you look at a person and not care anything about their image because of their garment.

Because when they speak, the presence of God attaches himself to their words. And you know that thus says the Lord, he had authority and fame. And this takes my breath away. The thought that it is possible for God to trust a man enough to position him with this kind of elevation, not just in front of anybody, but in front of the very people whose issue they struggle with is idolatry. He would say, I still trust you to go up there and know that you will not make an idol out of yourself who people are already weak to that. He says, I know you can carry the weight without ever touching the worship. And I'm amazed that God would trust him. And I'm also amazed that the whole time he never has a fall. He has an emotional breakdown, which we'll talk about, but he never has a fall.

He never has a schedule. Moses, he had to have a 40 year restoration period, still got sat down later, that's what we call it in the church. He got sat down. Abraham had Hagar, David had Bathsheba, but Elijah is still standing somewhere today. No scandals, no bodies buried in the sand. I'm amazed. So I go, God, what in the world? For those of you who don't know, this is the come up. This is how we get to the mountain is out of nowhere. It is the most abrupt introduction you could ever have of a powerful person. He comes on the scene of one kings like he broke into your house. You're like, whoa, where'd you come from? It just literally comes out of nowhere. Elijah. The Tish bite just tells you the city comes from and that's it. And it says this man, all of a sudden like a bowl coming out of a pen, he comes and he goes to the king and he prophesies. Look in Deuteronomy chapter 11, God promised you that if you served idols, he would shut the heavens up and he would stop the rain. And it came to tell you that God is going to his promise because he fulfills his promises, even the ones you don't like. So he says, I prophesied to you that from this moment on, there will be no rain. Receive that word today the church receive that word that there's going to be no rain except for at my word drops the mic.

And he's like, what now? God? He's like, hide, prophesy, and hide. It's actually what ministry is really like prophesy and hide. So

It really is. So God sins him. Where am I going next? Abrook all by yourself. No one's going to congratulate you about this. You're going to go sit by yourself. Go sit over here isolated by a brook. He sends him to a brook, where now the rain stops and it moves from being a drought into a famine. The implications of a drought are a lot of death and destruction. It's very bad for God's people. So he is though by a brook. He hears God and he goes to the specific brook where God supernaturally provides, he sends ravens and with bread and stuff like that. He's like whatever. And then from there he takes him to a place called Zafa. So between his intro and the showdown on the mountain are three and a half years where God hides him at a brook and in a place called Zafa.

In Zarephath you have the whole miracle story of a widow who was going to die and he asked her for her last meal and she gives it to him. She's going to die anyway. So her and her husband, excuse me, husband said her and her son are going to die. So God does this miracle and provides, and for all of them, the boy dies. Elijah resurrect him. But besides that, all we know is that for three and a half years he's hiding until God comes. And after three years in a gentile city, which by the way is Zarephath was a gentile city, the home of Jezebel herself, three and a half years, three of them in Zarephath, a place where nobody cares about your God or your Harry mantle, you're nothing to me. You're just another guy that means nothing to me. I don't serve your God.

And then one day God decides he's ready to send rain, but first he needs repentance. So he needs somebody who will go call them to repentance. So the showdown is not about rain or about stunts, it's about repentance. It's about proving to them who you are and calling them to repentance. So he finds Elijah and he takes Elijah from hiding into visibility from Rafa to Mount Carmel. And with visibility comes vulnerability. Because every time he steps foot one more step closer to the mountain, he steps out of a safe place because when nobody knows you, nobody wants to kill you. But the second you step foot out of zafa, these people, he finds out shortly in a few minutes from a guy named Obadiah who is a character. You got to read that. It's so funny. He finds out that Ahab king Ahab has been sending people into every nation looking for him still after three years and threatening, if you hide him, I will kill like everybody in your nation.

They still want him dead. He steps out into vulnerability, into visibility. And as he begins to walk, he runs into a guy named Obediah who is a follower of Christ. Obediah is like freaking out. He's like, go get Ahab, go get the king. He's like, meet me. Tell him to meet you, bro. If I go to that guy and he knows I saw you and didn't kill you, he will cut me. What have I ever done to you, Elijah? He just has a total breakdown. He goes on and on and Elijah is just like, bro, calm down. Call him that day. Go get ah, he gets Ahab and Ahab comes and Ahab comes out of nowhere and we read that. Ah, he's come out of his face talking to him out of his name you trouble of Israel and with the authority of a prophet's mantle, Elijah's like your father and your family, all y'all. And Ahab doesn't say anything. And then he tells him, now go get my nation. I'm talking about the kind of authority that will make a man who was trying to kill you, obey you. Like he works for you

Bro. Ahab should have killed him right there. It makes no sense, but there was some authority. There was a wait on Elijah that made a man who wanted to kill him, obey him. All right, well go get my nation. Yes sir. How do you want them? Do you want them all together in groups? Do you want them send all his people to work for Elijah, gather them on the mountain and then we read, he gathers everybody on the mountain, he goes and bring your 850 prophets and you know what, only 450 show up. The other 400 didn't want that smoke. They're like, no man, I'll stay here. 450 show up. And the first thing Elijah does is he stands before the people. And in 18 chapter 18 verse 21, Elijah went before the people and he said, how long will you waiver between two opinions? He's bothered, he's burdened. If the Lord's God follow him. But if Baals God follow him. But the people said nothing. Prophetic authority will always tell you to pick a side. They will not coddle complacency. They will not ever confront what they are called. They will never comfort what they are called to confront. I will not comfort you in your idolatry. So in the next few verses

He goes, this is how confident I am. This is what we're going to do. We're going to have a showdown. You guys get a bull. I get a bull 450 of you against me. I don't care. 450 of you. You chop up your bow, you make a sacrifice, whatever. The only thing is you can't light the fire. If your God is real, he can light that fire.

Tell him to bring that smoke. Okay? So you do that and here's the deal. I'm going to let you go first. Y'all go first, you go first. I'll give you a headstart. So 450 prophets and all the people they're like, but let's do this. Okay, let's settle this. So now there is a showdown on the mount, the 450 prophets of Baal. It says this in verse 26. So they took the bull. I want y'all to just tell me what this sounds like to you. Okay, so they took the bull, given them and prepared it. They called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. Baal answer us, they shouted, but there was no response. Nobody answered. They danced around the altar they had made at noon, Elijah began to taunt them. My guy shout louder, he said, shout, he's a God. Maybe he's in deep thought, busy traveling, maybe he's sleeping and must be awakened. He's bothered. So they shouted. They're dancing around the altar now they're shouting louder and slash themselves with swords and spears as was their custom until blood flowed, midday passed and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, come to me, and they came to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. Verse 36, at the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed, Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God and Israel and that I am your servant. Have done all of these things at your command. In other words, I wasn't down there plotting how I could come up. I didn't come up with this plan and ask God to bless it. Every single thing I do on this mountain is an act of obedience and not ambition. Let them know I have done all these things that your command, answer me, Lord, answer me so that these people will know that you Lord or God, and that you are turning their hearts back again. You go first. He tells them why? Because I want them to watch their idol fail. Watch your idol fail and you listen to it. What does it sound like? There's lots of dancing and there's a fancy altar and they're shouting and there's prophesy. You say, what's that sound? Is that the sound of high worship? No, it's not. It's just loud.

See, that singer was so anointed. No, that was just a high note.

Yeah,

Those music, did you feel the atmosphere shift? No, that was a minor key. They hate a minor to manipulate your emotions to make you believe that the emotion that the atmosphere just changed. Oh, that preacher, he can preach. No, he can't. You don't know one thing he said, you'll understand one thing. He just think he's deeper than you. And that's why. And that one day, if you keep coming, you'll get the same revelation. Watch your idol. Fail first. These guys. That's your prophets, that's your leaders. Okay, let's first watch them fail. You say, oh, but he could preach. He could preach. But is he faithful to his wife though? He's got a title who gave it to him where he get it? I think he has a mantle. No, not that's a robe. It smells like smoke and it smells like smoke. He told you it's a mantle, but the truth is it's fig leaves. It is the grace of God. It's just covering his naked and choosing not to expose him right now. But make no mistake, he should be ashamed of himself. And so I say, God, how are your people so easily fooled? How are we so easily deceived? And he said to me this, you assume that because a man has made it and has a title and visibility that God put him there, but the mountain, the elevation doesn't mean you made it. I said, but God, I thought it's you who raises up and it's you who lifts up. And God said, how many prophets were on that mountain?

451 prophets made it. 451 prophets made it on the mountain with the same big crowd, the same opportunity, the same moment. They all made it. The only differences, 451 made it on, but only one will make it off because this mountain is going to kill the other 450. So I want to ask people who have been just dying for their moments on the mountain, do you really want to die on that mountain? Did you know mountains can kill you? I'm not talking about falling off them or getting eaten by the animals, and I'm talking about just being on a high mountain because of the elevation. You can actually die of elevation sickness. Just take one breath and never come off that mountain. It doesn't matter how good you are at climbing, your body can only stand withstand a certain. I learned this living in Denver for a few years when I was a kid and becoming a Denver Bronco fan. It's been a hard several years, but your Cowboys fans, it's fine. Could be worse. But we knew that we always had an advantage because we were at the Mile High Stadium. The elevation in Denver meant that our players could perform at a level that the other players struggled with because they didn't live in the mountain and they didn't train on the mountain, they visited the mountain. And so they had a hard time breathing at that elevation.

And then I look it up and I find that you can actually die. You can be so high in a mountain, your body just literally cannot withstand it. And so they actually die on the mountain. People die on the mountain. I say, holy Spirit, show me what you're trying to say because I'm not a girl who just runs to analogies. I think they're dangerous. And the Holy Spirit begins to show me this analogy, if you will allow me the opportunity here to share it with you. I said, God. So how did he survive this mountain that killed everybody else? And he says, because I trained him for it. It's something called elevation simulation that they do nowadays for athletes to try to train their body for what it's going to be like on the mountains. And how did you train him? God? He said, I trained him at the brook. I trained him at the brook. It was elevation simulation sitting in a place where the only thing that stood between him and death was his ability to discern my voice

Isolated from everyone else in a place where he had nothing else to listen to. So he learned to tune his ear to my voice. He learned not to compete with anyone else because there was nothing else to even compare himself. I trained him at the brook and then I really took him to train at Zarephath. I trained him. It was elevation simulation, zafa. He discerns that God, he had to humble himself and do what no Israel man would ever want to do, which was to ask a Gentile woman for help who was a widow. The humiliation he suffered there in that moment to delay down all his pride. I trained him in Zarephath. And did you know the actual meaning of the word zarephath? The city. Zarephath actually means the place of smelting or refining. And while he was in Zafa, he's living in a gentile city for three years where he was anointed but invisible, anointed but not honored, where he had a gift from God but nobody cared. He was invisible and still anointed because before God can trust you with honor, he has to trust you with dishonor. Can you imagine this for three years? I'm called. I know it's in me. I know it's in me and I know it's on me. People say to me all the time, if I'm in a church and I'm not being used, does that mean I'm in the wrong place? No, that means you're in the right place. You're in zarephath.

God is training you. So he's in Gentile city for three years where nobody recognizes him. It's a place of training where you are anointed but unseen where your gift is not honored. Did you know this boy? He has the first miracle of resurrection in scripture. There was no precedent for it. The woman die, the woman's son dies. She says, my son son's dying. And he goes home and he gets up in that room with this dead boy and he prays over him and nothing happens. And he gets on his body and he prays again. And three times he prays again and a boy was resurrected. Now, can you imagine this kind of miracle and nobody sees it?

You get to perform a resurrection. And the only buddy that gets to know or see it is his mom. Do you understand how anti-climatic this is? You perform a miracle. Oh, he raced from the dead. And it's like, okay, so you could go downstairs now and go to your own bed, see him the next morning eating cereal. So how you doing

This good man, I was dead yesterday. I'm alive today. Can't complain. Pha is the place where God has to see. Will you pray with the same passion? Will you pray with the same burden When there is no audience, when there is no celebration, there will be no book deal. I wonder how many dead boys have we left resurrected because we weren't waiting for an audience. How many things are dying? Because you don't have the passion to get back on his body and pray unless there's a camera or an audience. You don't have the passion to just go into your job and be the church of Jesus Christ. You don't look at one person and care about them. He prayed for him and he had a passion for the one because he had a burden for people. He did have a desire for a mountain. What might God allow you to resurrect if you were not waiting for an audience, if nobody saw but God, he wasn't in Zarephath praying for elevation, he was praying for people. He loved people. He cared about people. And for three and a half years, this is a long time, I'm like, God,

Did you wait three and a half years because Israel wasn't ready? Or did you wait three and a half years because Elijah wasn't ready? What were you waiting on? And it could have been either one, but it's very likely that he was waiting on Elijah to be ready to prove himself in Zarephath in the place of in of testing. He said, I trained him on the mountain of testing in pha. I trained him with hiddenness and humility. But you know where else he learned to be able to handle the mountain is that Elijah was also a man who lived on the mountain of God.

He was a man who, James lets us in on this secret. The first thing we read in one Kings about him is him coming out of nowhere prophesying. But James tells us what kind of person he was. He goes, James or James says, Elijah, he was just like us. He wasn't special. Come on. The only difference was that he prayed. He prayed and it didn't rain. He prayed and it started raiding again. Elijah was a man who could hear from God because he lived on the mountain of God. He lived on the mountain of God. We don't know anything about where he came from except for his hometown and the fact that he came from the mountain of God that this wasn't something he started praying when it all happened. This was who he was. Elijah did not pray for fame, right? Name one guy in the scripture who God made famous that prayed and asked for it. Moses, God comes to Moses. He's like, no, thank you. No thanks. That guy, somebody else, Abraham, this Elijah, if you would come to the keys, Abraham, God goes, Abraham, hey man, I want to make you famous. I want to make your name great. God initiates that conversation and Abraham's standing there like I was just asking for a baby.

You're saying a lot right now. God's like, yeah, you're a baby. You won't imagine. How many people are going to call you Daddy going to be.

There's going to be a song and everything. Abraham's like, I didn't ask for that. I asked for a child. And he goes, yeah, yeah, I know, but I've called you to the mountain of influence. The only thing is Abraham, I don't want that mountain to kill you. So I'm going to send you to another mountain first with your dream. And if you'll die on that mountain, I can trust you with this one. Will you take Isaac? I don't want to tell you that on that mountain somebody died. Isaac didn't die. Abraham did.

First thing that happens in Jesus ministry was he was led by the Spirit into a mountain to be tested, to be tested, to be tested in the mountain Y. He had a mountain of influence, but the first thing he needed to do is cover the mountain of testing. He needed to be in the mountain of testing and then he would live after that. On the mountain of God, constantly going away to the mountain of God. He prayed. He prayed just like Elijah do you know God taught Elijah what Google taught me. They said, when you enter a search and you say, how do you avoid mountain sickness? And they say, the best way is to ascend gradually. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Clean hands, pure heart. How do you get? I go, God, how do you get to the top of a mountain that is so dirty with clean hands? God says, first of all, you can't claw your way there.

But most importantly, the way you get to the top of the mountain with clean hands is by ascending gradually. You have to stop constantly. Stop constantly. Every morning, God are my hands clean. Search me. Oh God is my heart pure? What do you see? God, I know my motives were right yesterday, but have they gone today? What do I really want? What am I hungry for? You got to stop every day and sometimes more than one time a day, and stop and examine yourself with the light. I need some light. I need the light of your word. I need the light of your word today. I need you wash to wash me in the water of your word today. Gradually you ascend and then you climb again and you keep stopping no matter who else is in your corner. But no, you good. You're amazing.

No girl. I got to go ask God. I got to go to God. I've got to ascend gradually on my hands clean. And after they've wash their idle fall and they've washed their leaders fail, he calls them back to an old broken down altar. He doesn't build a new one, but it says He repairs the altar of the Lord that had been broken down. He calls them back to the purity of their faith. Remember when worship was pure, when his, you and God, this old altar, even though it has been deconstructed and put in pieces, I'm going to put it back together and show you that no matter how much you deconstruct it, it's still hasn't lost its power because God has done with idols, but he is not done with his church.

And Elijah, when God trusted with him in the mountain, he got there. Instead of building a platform, he built an altar. And a moment he will pray down fire. When that fire comes, they will remember for a moment, Sodom and Gomorrah, and they know their guilt and there will be a moment of terror among them when they see that fire, I guarantee you that thinks that fire just might be coming for them and that fire they will have to be afraid of. But Elijah can stand close to the altar without fear because he's got pure hands and a pure hearts clean hands and a pure hearts. And they brace themselves, but he will not. And without a single word, the gospel is preached in this moment on top of a hill as an innocent sacrifices laid on wood. And the guilty watch as the wrath that should come on them instead falls on the sacrifice without any outline or any invitation, the altar is full of repentance.

See, Elijah was famous, but he was not worshiped because he could fearlessly stay close enough to the altar that when they looked at him, all they saw was the sacrifice, glory. And at the end of the story, he tells Ahab to go celebrate. He goes, Elijah says, Ahab, go get something to eat and drink right here. Mighty rainstorm coming. You go celebrate. So Ahab went to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Mount car and he bowed low to the ground and he prayed with his face between his knees. What did he do after this great success? He didn't revel in how great it was. Oh, did you see that? Did see, did you hear me when I said this? Did you hear me? T umbrella. You saw that, right? No, there was none of that. He climbed his way alone, back up to the altar and got back down on his face and say, there was a great victory. I'm glad you kept me alive to see it, but I still need you today. I still need you today to finish what you started. And we'll follow the story. The same guy challenging and taunting these false prophets. A little while later, he will beg God to just let him die.

He'll get so overwhelmed that he'll have a moment and he says to God, I've had enough. And I've heard him rebuked by a lot of preachers, but I never see a rebuke in the scripture for him. He's exhausted. He's emotionally wore down. He had some moment. And any pastor who told you they never wanted to quit lied to you. I try to quit so many times. It's the hardest thing you could ever do. And he wants to quit. He doesn't even want to lie to live. He pretty much goes to sleep and ask God to not let him wake up. And instead of rebuke, he gets an invitation. He gets an invitation. Elijah, I know what you need because that mountain has depleted you because nobody said because you're called to it that it isn't hard to breathe. It is hard to breathe. It's hard up there on that mountain of influence. So I know where you're at and I know what you need. And he calls him to a place where does he invite him to meet with him on a mountain? It's called Mount Hob. And it literally means the mountain of God.

And when he gets to this mountain wanting to die, the Lord speaks to him audibly but not loudly in a whisper. And I want to tell you that on this mountain, one whisper on this mountain can take a man who wants to die and give him the will to live, to go from wanting to die, to deciding to disciple and find Elisha. And when God meets him on this mountain, he gets the courage to walk back to the other mountains. This is a mountain. God goes, come back to this mountain. This is the mountain that satisfies. This is you need a moment with God. You need the mountain of God. You need the mountain of God. And when God comes and he whispers and he realizes, Elijah takes his mountain, his mantle, and he covers his face. And I feel the spirit of the Lord saying this, that in this hour he is wanting to people who will cover their face in a world that says you need your face to be seen, that they will live. So against the culture and so rebellious to that culture that says, no, I don't need my face to be seen. I need to live a life that's holy and reverence enough that I have to keep my face covered.

We need people standing on platforms that preach that you cannot see their face, that you're not enamored with their face. All you know is when they speak, you hear thus says the Lord. And you know that God has spoken who don't care about their image, they care about his face. I saw a picture of two mountains as we close, I saw a picture of two mountains, two peaks, and one was full of people. And I would see people literally falling off of it. And there was a mountain right next to it and it was almost empty. Just a couple people here and there. And at the top of that mountain was God weeping because this is the mountain of elevation and everyone is trying to claw their way to the top. But this was the mountain of the Lord, the hill of the Lord, where there was an invitation for Elijah to come meet with God, come meet with God and live on this mountain. And so I came to tell you today that that mountain is simply a trap. It is a distraction of the enemy to keep you off of this mountain. You will not find your identity or security on that mountain. You'll find it here. You will not find purpose on that mountain. You'll find it here. You don't find out who you really are on that mountain. You find it here. Do you really want to die on that mountain when God is standing on top of this one? What if we had a church full of people who didn't just visit the mountain on Sunday, but they went home and they lived on the mountain of God?

What if we were people who were, instead of pastor, having to get up and work to preach and cut through an atmosphere we carried. We had people who came in here with mantles who carried the presence of God, who had been meeting with God constantly, who stopped God off social media, stopped all the distraction and said, God, I need the mountain of God. And the Lord is calling us back to the mountains, to a place where people would climb anything and leave everything behind to meet with God. I just came to remind you, you've been praying for a mountain and there's one open. Lord, would you turn our hearts to the point? Would Embassy city Church be a place? Lord would the presence of God is so thick that people run to the altar without an invitation

Where the voice of God is so clear that people know if I need to know what God is saying in my life, I need to get to the house of the Lord because there's a man with a mantle, not a celebrity. Because there's people who live on the mountain who seeking after promotion, who want there to see when they'll get a chance on the platform, people who live on the mountain of God, may this be a house, Lord, where you are honored and you are alone in this place and in our lives. God, we repent. Yes, we repent, Lord, for all of our idols, and we thank you that today you have come for our hearts. If you feel the Lord convicting you.

We need to respond. We need to respond. Church, we need to respond as quickly as you would run to an altar with an offering. Would you run that quickly with your own life? If you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I need you to respond. I just need you to respond and build an altar. Whether you come here or you make an altar in your chair, we need a moment where the Holy Spirit has the opportunity. There is an invitation to the mountain of God.

Whatever the Holy Spirit is saying to you, just say, yes, sir.

You're holy in this place. You revered in this place. Lord,

We are sorry, Lord. We are sorry. Lord, we want you. Lord we want you, for you, for you, for you. Give us clean hands in a pure heart, Lord, clean hands.

Clean hands, pure heart. God, may we not lift up our soul to idols. Forgive us for longings that have been misplaced, Lord longings that belong to you God long we return to you, oh Lord, we return you. God, we return to you. Lord, show us the mountain. Show your people the mountain of God, that it's the place that satisfies that it is the place that makes a person. It is what makes you great, is the mountain of God. We respond, Lord, we respond. We respond. Take us to the mountain of God. Take us to the mountain of God.